papercup

I had the itch to play more Star Ocean. I busted out the PS2 and found my old copy of Till the End of Time. Havent played it in like 16 years. My goodness, the bonus gauge is one of the worst leveling mechanics Ive ever seen. First of all you have to build the gauge up which can take a long time because only enemies close to your level will build it up. Then you have to hold the bonus for up to 15 battles to get triple exp. Then it still takes multiple DOZENS of battles to get a single level. And if at any time you take a critical hit. Even for 0 damage the gauge breaks and you have to start over. Seriously WTF were they thinking with this system? I have almost 600 battles and Im only like level 25. And I remember very well that theres a HUGE difficulty spike in disc 2 and its best to try to get a high level before that. The exp balancing is all sorts of fucked up in this one.

Oh also Item Creation/Inventing sucks in this one. It isnt explained at all and it requires a guide to get through it, and even then its possible to completely fuck it up and waste a ton of money. And its arguably more important in this one than in 1 or 2 because the weapons you can get from it are more or less required in disc 2.